WEST OCEAN CITY — A persistent sandbar at the entrance to the West Ocean City commercial fishing harbor is causing problems for incoming fishing boats, meaning additional dredging may be needed to improve maritime traffic.

John Martin, of Martin Fish Co., said the sandbar between buoys 11 and 12 has been keeping 80-foot fishing trawlers from getting into the harbor with their daily catch. The boats only can get in when it’s high tide, and even then, Martin said, they’re scraping the bottom. That’s because the harbor is 10 feet deep, and his boats have a 12-foot draft.

Martin wants to see the harbor dredged to a depth of 14 feet to ensure that larger vessels are able to clear the harbor bottom safely.

“That particular spot just humps up, and it’s always been a little bit of a shallow spot for years, but it’s been bad for the last five, six years,” he said. “If the boat can’t come in and unload, or he’s afraid it’s going to tear the bottom of his boat up, it’s a problem. I don’t know how to put a number on it, because prices change and quotas change. We’re the only oceanside port in Maryland we can’t afford to lose anything.”

Inside the Industry

SeaShare, a non-profit organization that facilitates donations of seafood to feed the hungry, announced on Wednesday, July 29 that it had partnered up with Alaska seafood companies, freight companies and the Coast Guard, to coordinate the donation and delivery of 21,000 pounds of halibut to remote villages in western Alaska.

On Wednesday, the Coast Guard loaded 21,000 pounds of donated halibut on its C130 airplane in Kodiak and made the 634-mile flight to Nome.

NEFMC trawl survey AP deadline approaches

The New England Fishery Management Council is soliciting applications for seats on the Northeast Trawl Survey Advisory Panel and the deadline to apply is July 31 at 5:00 p.m.

The panel will consist of 16 members including members of the councils and the Atlantic States Fishery Commission, industry experts, non-federal scientists and Northeast Fisheries Science Center scientists. Panel members are expected to serve for three years.

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